Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine I quit smoking!

While I've met plenty of people who smoke because their parents did, some kids go the other way. My parents smoked, and it's the main reason I never got into it. I could tell just from growing up around smokers how it was wrecking them (not physically, but emotionally). Something else else about feeling helpless and dependent seemed to crush them a little bit, and make it harder for them to love themselves (or each other, for that matter) and made it hard for me to respect them, since they were so obviously trapped and feeling awful about it. I had asthma and bronchitis as a kid, and I know they blamed themselves for that.

The usual excuses would come out. "It calms me down!" "No mom, it makes you a raving b*tch. You get shaky, forgetful, snappish, angry and frustrated at everything, make all sorts of bad choices and clumsy mistakes in your fidgety state, and then get angry and frustrated at yourself, and think that just one more cigarette will somehow 'calm you down,' when it's the stimulants in the cigarettes that are making you jittery and distracted in the first place."

Thankfully, my mom has quit, but only after burying her husband (who died of the complications following surgery for lung cancer).

In the average year, 100,000 people die directly from alcohol, and another 100,000 die in alcohol-related automobile accidents or murders. 200-1000 die from cocaine (widely different numbers, depending on where you look). ~400 die from heroin. 0 (zero) deaths are attributed to marijuana.

340,000-395,000 die from tobacco.

All the luck in the world to anyone who wants to quit, and congratulations to anyone who has!

Yep, I'd have to say I'd do the same, never start

I'm on my seventh week of Chantix and feeling hopeful.

Over the years I have unsuccessfully tried all of the following methods of quitting:

cold turkey
hypnosis
nicotine weaning
nicotine patches
acupuncture
nicotine gum
Wellbutrin
nicotine lozenges

I was not feeling real good about my first few weeks on Chantix. I've had friends tell me that they quickly lost the urge to smoke with with this pill. For me, the urge was still there. I cut back a bit but was back up to my normal intake by the third week. I read on the instructions that some people have success in their ninth to 12th weeks so I kept on taking it. Then BOOM, the urge started to decrease early in the sixth week. I'm down to a quarter of what I typically smoke, and find it difficult to get through a whole cigarette without getting a funny feeling in my stomach. This might work. Stay tuned.

I'm sorry, but after reading this thread, I'm never quitting smoking!!
So tragic.

<-------- Lighting one now

Good luck, Jerry.

<----Never smoked. Never will.

And - four years after writing that - that time has come.

It's been about nine days now since I started on the smoking cessation drug, Chantix, and - after seven days of an almost exponential drop in my desire - I'm now into day two of being completely smoke free!

I know that doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment, but - trust me - anyone here who has spent any amount of time with me in real life can attest to the fact that there is rarely an open-air moment when I can be found without a cigarette in my mouth.

In any case, for a variety of reasons, I finally feel like the time is right to give this another try and - thus far - I'm really feeling like this is going to be the time that sticks.





So, Jerry, since you are the only other person I know that went this particular route, how did it wind up working for you?

WOOOOOOOO!!! Go you! My parents both used Chantix (after smoking for over 25 years) and BOTH are smoke free. They say you have odd dreams, but otherwise it's okay. You can do it! Buy yourself something NICE with all the money you're going to be saving!

*cheer*

Way to go Ex.
The second last time I tried to quit I used a similar drug, Champix.
It was pretty effective, but then I was hit with the more severe side-effects and had to stop taking it.

The last time I tried I was just cutting back and was down to 3 or 4 a day but then I started this co-ordinator position at work and am back to a pack a day again.
Figure when this shut-down is over and I go back to my regular job I'll try again.

Good going, Ex--and it *is* a huge accomplishment,

EX !!!! HANG IN THERE!!! GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!

I quit smoking (yes it can be done!) .... almost three years ago. I moved and used the new scene to quit cold turkey. (except for two cigarettes in the first months.)

its been three years. I still have nightmares that i am smoking, or rarely cravings ... which is creepy because it must be the chemical addiction.

don't start.

Good Luck Exnihil! I know you can do it!

I did quit after making that post in 2010 -- for about six months. The Chantix really did work while I was on it, but the desire creeped back after I stopped taking it.


I am now taking the Chantix again, and haven't had a cigarette in three months. My doctor says the protocol for the Chantix has changed since my last attempt. It is now recommended that you take it for a full six months. So, I've got the full six month scrip and I'm pretty sure that it is permanent quit this time.

Have either of you tried electronic cigarettes? One of my FB friends has posted and YouTubed about them.

You can do it, Jerry!

Thanks everyone for the support, it really does mean a lot.

Right now I'm still thinking in terms of hours (73 smoke-free!) but I'm really looking forward to the point where it becomes less of a novelty and more just a normal thing to not be smoking.

No, Huey, I've never tried those electronic cigarettes... I kind of feel like the whole "physical motion" aspect of smoking is a really important thing to break and any sort of substitute like that (or other things that sites suggest like a cinnamon stick or a toothpick) are still reinforcing that "hand to mouth" motion. I don't know... maybe that's just me... but I wouldn't think that would work for me.

I did start running again yesterday. I did a two mile course just to see what kind of shape I was in. I had to walk a couple times, but overall I did feel great afterward, so I think that exercise is going to be key.


And huge congrats to Jerry, as well. Three months is fantastic. We can totally be "quit buddies," he said, nerding it up.

Peebs needs bust out the sketch book and do a Spider-Man homage where Jerry and I are walking away from our cigarettes in a garbage can, "Smokers... No More!"

Ooh, that's a fun idea, re-doing old classic covers with various PSAs.

Superman showing Green Arrow a collection of ashtrays and empty smoke cartoons, while Ollie gasps, 'My ward is a smoker!' for instance.

Jerry and Ex, I'm hoping for great success for you!

I started back. Stress.

Thanks, guys. This is the real thing this time. I've quit for good. I feel it in my bones.

No thanks on the electronic cigarette, HWW. There was a woman on an episode of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills a couple of seasons ago who smoked one at a dinner party. She was psychic and friend of Camille Grammer (Frasier's ex-wife). Very irritating person. She was even more irritating when she sucked on that electronic cig. Fingers on a chalk board level irritating. I could never smoke one without thinking of her.

^

Well, for anyone who's interested, here's a link to my FB friend's channel in which he reviews different brands of electronic cigarettes. It might be of help to some.

I KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!!!

She got plastered at dinner and then got in a fight with the other girls!!!

I don't watch RH but I heard the real Allison DuBois, whose life because the series Medium, was on it. Also heard she wasn't nearly as nice as the fictional Allison.

And Ex, I very much appreciate your quitting in time for Legion World Gathering, whether or not that was coincidence.

That was her. She got drunk, used her psychic powers to tell one of the housewives that her husband didn't really love her, sucked on that electronic cigarette, and then the cat fight started.